XCSoarWiki
= XCSoar WIKI = Contributing When will XCSoar support some better documentation? As soon as someone with the skill, resources, and time implements it. XCSoar isn't developed by a company. it's done by volunteers. Much of the development is done by people solving their own problems. At this stage we have no one working on better documentation and we are in need of help. So what does it involve? Writing documentation for XCSoar does not require any special computer skills. There are friendly developers on the mailing list to answer any tricky questions, and there is someone to do all the formatting and web work already (Scott Penrose). So you can do it in plain text. Start by writing a short section and submitting it to the xcsoar-devel mailing list. Projects like these work on a slow, incremental process where you start with something small - get it out there for the users - and progress from there. Not only is a small bit of work easier to manage and complete, it is useful to others and even inspires more work from you and others. Alternatively, get an account on the WIKI and start making your changes live. This is not as scary as it sounds. Good luck, and have fun. How do I get WIKI edit access? Use Log in | create account on the right upper side of the browser windows to log in (after having created an account). After logged in you can edit the Wiki pages. Urgent Issues Use the search for "XXX" and "TODO" to find the most important issues on what is required for the WIKI. Also see Category:Articles that need to be updated. Page / Article Names * Standard names - use your own sense. * Use "_" instead of mixed caps - as the title is then nicer (eg: Install Windows instead of InstallWindows) Hierarchy vs Words vs Namespace Namespace Use namespace only for very special entries. For example the "Faq:" namespace is used for each of the FAQ entries. Only one level of Namespace should be considered, and they should be fairly well documented and controlled. Words If you are splitting a document into multiple pages then the best way is to split this via words (ala Install and Install_Windows) Hierarchy The best way to get a hierarchy is to use a "/" in the name. The best example of this is the reference namespace, a set of words like this "Reference:Events/AdjustVarioFilter" is broken into: * "Reference:" - the namespace - all the reference manuals * "Events" - the chapter in reference. If you wanted to add a section on how to add new events you might add "Reference:Events_New" * "/AdjustVarioFilter" - is a particular event. This mean you can programmatically map the C and Event Config code into a URL ala "Reference:Events/$name" Language You can edit the template Template:H-langs to add a new language. You can add this template to a page by adding the text H-langs (surrounded by doubled { }, like you would use double [ ]) to the top of a page. This is a very basic form of multiple languages, recommended by Mediawiki - the solution is very easy to use, but the problem is to do with the sidebar navigation. * TODO: Add the H-langs to the template to it appears on all pages * TODO: Review how the sidebar could be changed, without separate WIKIs. Templates Templates can be used within the wiki. Some very useful templates are those that list groups of content you may need in multiple places. Examples: * Template:Reference-Events * Template:H-langs Editing the Sidebar Go to MediaWiki:Sidebar to edit the Sidebar - but try and be careful. Manual and Image Content http://www.xcsoar.org/manual/ to see the manual raw data. Try http://www.xcsoar.org/manual/images.html for a full list of images. Use http://www.xcsoar.org/manual/loggerreplay.png or http://www.xcsoar.org/manual/loggerreplay_small.png or http://www.xcsoar.org/manual/plain_small.png Text here... to embed the images.